Saving Sofia

by Linda Seed

  What was it about his nervousness that charmed her so thoroughly? Maybe it was that he was so different than anyone she’d dated before. She felt warm and happy just hearing him struggle through the phone call.

  “I’d love to have dinner with you. Or coffee and a muffin.”

  “You would?” He sounded surprised, which charmed her even more.

  “I would.”

  “That’s … good. Great. That’s great.” He let out a puff of air. “Let’s make it Friday night, then. Can I call you on Friday morning with the details?”

  “Patrick?”

  “Yes?”

  She smiled and put a full, flirtatious spin on her tone. “You can call me whenever you like. You don’t have to wait until Friday.”

  8

  Patrick did wait until Friday to call, but not because he didn’t want to talk to Sofia. The problem was one of logistics: If he called, she might ask where they would be going and what they would be doing on Friday night, and he didn’t know yet. He wanted to plan the date well and wisely; he didn’t want to blurt out something on the spur of the moment just to avoid the embarrassing admission that he didn’t yet have any ideas.

  But that raised another problem. The fact that she had told him he didn’t have to wait until Friday suggested that she didn’t want him to wait until Friday. Which meant that she wanted—even expected—a call sooner. He might show up for their date on Friday night already having made a terrible mistake by failing to meet her phone-contact expectations.

  He couldn’t worry about that, though. He had to stay focused on the main task.

  For that, he couldn’t rely on Ramon, but he certainly didn’t want to leave it to his own possibly limited imagination. So he contacted the person in his life who had the best expertise on such things.

  He called Ramon’s wife, Lucy.

  “I invited her to dinner. But now I’m wondering if that’s too boring, too … expected. In fact, it seems I couldn’t have proposed a less creative option. I don’t know what I’m doing. In fact, I’m going to call her and cancel.” He wasn’t really going to cancel, but it felt like a tempting idea.

  “No, you’re not,” Lucy said. “And dinner’s fine.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course it is. It’s a classic for a reason.”

  “Well … all right. That’s reassuring.”

  “Now, the problem is that dinner covers a lot of possible territory,” Lucy said, her voice thoughtful. “You can go the formal route—Neptune or the Sandpiper, maybe—or more casual. Burgers, pizza, that sort of thing. Then there’s the whole area in between those two ends of the spectrum. And that doesn’t even cover the category of picnics, home-cooked meals, or takeout.”

  “Oh, God,” Patrick moaned. “I really am going to cancel.”

  “No, you’re not,” Lucy said again. “Go with Neptune. The food’s good, the atmosphere is nice, and they don’t play loud music in the dining room, so it’s good for getting to know someone.”

  “Neptune.” He’d been there a couple of times since he’d come to Cambria, and he’d enjoyed it.

  “Sure. That’s where Ramon took me on our first date, and I married him.”

  According to Ramon, the route to marriage hadn’t led immediately from Neptune to the altar. Rather, it had detoured through several failed proposals, a breakup, a reunion, years of cohabitation, and a course of treatment with a relationship counselor. Still, they’d gotten there eventually.

  When Friday night came, Patrick picked up Sofia at her house, the way any gentleman would. He knocked on the door, his palms sweaty and his heart racing, and she opened it looking stunning, as usual.

  She tried to usher him out to the car quickly, closing the door behind her, grabbing his hand, and pulling him down the porch steps and toward the curb. But her plan was foiled when a woman who looked like a slightly older, more staid version of Sofia opened the door and greeted him.

  “Well, hello,” the woman said. She was shorter than Sofia, maybe a little trimmer in build, with dark, shoulder-length hair that had been straightened. “What’s the rush? Sofia, bring your guest in to meet everybody.”

  Patrick cleared his throat. “Um … everybody?”

  “We’re in a hurry, Bianca,” Sofia said. “We’ll miss our reservation.”

  “Well, actually,” Patrick said, “our reservation’s not until six-thirty, and it’s barely six, so …”

  “Perfect,” Bianca said.

  Sofia wasn’t sure how she’d ended up introducing Patrick to her sisters on what was only their second date. Having a guy meet the family was something one should do only after things got serious—if at all. Of course, her sisters had met most of her boyfriends in the past, and that was probably why she was hesitating now. They met, and then they judged, and then they offered unsolicited advice.

  Still, Bianca had outplayed her, hauling ass to the porch before Sofia had a chance to get away.

  Now, there was no choice but to go through with it—or she’d have to explain later, both to Patrick and to her sisters, why she hadn’t wanted to.

  “I’m Bianca. This is Martina, and that one over there is Benedetta.” Bianca made the introductions while Sofia stood aside, considering ways to create a diversion so she and Patrick could escape.

  “Ah … Patrick Connelly.” He shook hands with everyone, looking both nervous and intrigued. “You have a beautiful home.”

  He was looking around with interest, and Sofia knew the compliment had been more than an empty bit of courtesy.

  “The kitchen … is that redwood?” he asked.

  Martina, pleased to be in her element, started giving him a tour. “Yes! The countertop was custom made by a craftsman here in town. The floors are the original oak, and you see that window up there? The red one?” She pointed to a small red pane of glass set into the peak of the roofline. “That was from when the house was a den of prostitution.”

  “Before we got here,” Benny pointed out.

  “And … is this a real log cabin?” Patrick asked.

  “Two, actually,” Martina went on. “Our parents had two small cabins joined into one to get the amount of square footage they wanted. This area here is one house, and if you go down that hall, you’ll be in the other.”

  “It’s wonderful,” he said. He seemed to mean it.

  “Can we go?” Sofia said irritably.

  “Not so fast,” Benny said.

  “Yeah,” Martina agreed. “You’ve got time.” She grabbed Patrick by the arm and pulled him into a hallway so she could give him the complete tour of the house, including bedrooms, the vintage claw-foot tub in the largest bathroom, the loft—accessible only by ladder—off of the sitting room, and the library.

  “You have a library.” Patrick marveled at the array of books lining the walls in a large room off the kitchen.

  “Our mom loved to read,” Martina said, her voice dreamy. “This was one of the first rooms she set up when they renovated the place.”

  The room had rough-hewn oak floors, a high ceiling with exposed beams, some comfortable-looking leather club chairs, and, most importantly, the books. He took a volume off of a shelf and read the cover. To Kill a Mockingbird.

  “Wait. Is this a first edition?” The cover was worn, but the book was still serviceable and intact.

  “It is,” she confirmed, clearly pleased that he’d spotted it. “It was given to my mother as a gift by one of her boyfriends before she met Dad. Do you like to read?”

  He put the book back carefully. “Yes, I do. Ah … I guess Sofia didn’t tell you anything about me. I’m an English professor at Cal Poly.”

  “Really.” The way Martina was looking at him, he might have said that he’d recently arrived from Venus. “Well, this is going to be interesting.”

  Sofia couldn’t wait to get Patrick out of the house, but by the time she did, it was too late. Her sisters had already had time to grill him. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he could handle
it—more that she didn’t like them poking into her business.

  She loved them—of course she did. But why couldn’t she have anything that was private, just her own?

  He walked her to his car and opened the door for her. Typically, she didn’t date the kind of man who opened doors for her. She probably should object on feminist grounds, but why? It was nice being with a man who had manners.

  Once he was in the car beside her, his seatbelt buckled, he turned to her. “I wanted to tell you as soon as I saw you that you look lovely, but your sister came out, and I got sidetracked. You do, though. Look lovely.”

  She was wearing a little black dress with an A-line, knee-length skirt and a sweetheart neckline. She’d had to borrow the dress from Bianca; Sofia’s wardrobe consisted almost entirely of items one might wear to the beach. When Patrick had said they were going to Neptune, she knew she would have to do better than that.

  She’d fretted over her clothing choice more than she would have admitted; she wasn’t used to dressing up, but she wanted to look good for Patrick. She wanted to please him, which was, in itself, a puzzling development.

  He looked good, too—almost startlingly so. She’d thought of him as a too-thin, slightly nerdy-looking guy, but he looked almost … elegant in a nice pair of slacks and a dark blue blazer over a gray dress shirt. When the word popped into her mind, she knew it was right. He’d have looked right at home in a 1940s Hollywood film next to some starlet.

  “Your sisters seemed nice,” he said as he drove toward the restaurant. “I take it you didn’t want me to meet them.”

  She hadn’t, but the reasons were complex enough that she didn’t want to unpack them right now—not on a second date. Instead, she changed the subject.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.

  The look he gave her told her that he knew exactly what she was doing, if not why. But, mercifully, he let her do it.

  “Two. A brother and a sister.”

  So, he would understand sibling dynamics. That was something.

  9

  Clearly, she hadn’t wanted him to meet her sisters. And clearly, she didn’t want to talk about it. That was okay; it was far too early for either of them to force uncomfortable topics of conversation on the other. Still, it raised questions.

  Did she think one side would disapprove of the other? If so, why?

  He was already nervous enough about dating Sofia without the worry that her sisters might think he wasn’t good enough.

  Or, maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe the sisters were horrible, and she hadn’t wanted them to scare him away. Except, they hadn’t seemed horrible. He’d liked them.

  He was still pondering it when the hostess at Neptune seated them at a table near the front window.

  Neptune was upscale, with polished wood floors, tasteful lighting, white tablecloths, an extensive wine list, and a seafood menu large and varied enough to earn the restaurant its name. Patrick had been here once for a colleague’s retirement party and another time for a friend’s birthday—but he’d never come here with a date.

  Certainly, he’d never been here with anyone who made him feel the way Sofia did.

  The way she looked—that dress had him distracted to the point that he wasn’t sure he could remember how to order food, let alone eat it.

  Somehow, he managed to get through the menu-reading and food-ordering part of the evening without incident. But the conversation—that was harder.

  He’d already failed with his initial gambit—the one about her sisters. He didn’t do much better when he asked her about her mother.

  “Your mother’s library is amazing,” he said when they had their wine, a chardonnay for him and a cabernet sauvignon for her, and they were enjoying it with hot rolls from the bread basket. “That first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird …” He shook his head in awe. “Did she have other rare editions?”

  She looked down at her bread plate, avoiding his eyes. Then she changed the subject—again. “You must love to read, given what you do for a living.”

  “I do.” He had a choice to make: push it or let it go. For the second time, he let it go. “The books I read when I was young—from as soon as I was old enough to hold a book—were what inspired me to teach. Books have always had a lot of meaning for me.”

  She told him about a book she particularly loved—a love story by an author whose name he knew.

  He didn’t try to talk about her family again.

  By halfway through the dinner entrée, he was sure the date was destined for disaster. He’d been so disheartened by his failed attempts at conversation that he was now venturing only into the least offensive topics: weather, attractive vacation spots, and current movies.

  He was boring himself senseless; he could only imagine how Sofia must feel.

  But just when he was starting to think the whole thing was hopeless, he was handed a gift in the form of the couple at the next table.

  They were in their fifties, probably: him, balding with a bad comb-over, ruddy skin, and a paunch at his middle; her, recently blow-dried and manicured, with elaborate makeup and hair that looked like it would withstand gale-force winds.

  The two of them had just arrived, and after a few moments of quiet conversation about some unknowable thing—their grown kids, maybe, or the mortgage—they started to argue about the menu.

  It started simply enough, with her claiming she didn’t like salmon. Patrick wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but their voices carried, and their table was only a few feet away.

  “Since when do you not like salmon?” the guy asked.

  “Since I was five, Albert, which is why I can’t believe your inability to hold onto this particular piece of information.”

  Sofia shot Patrick an amused look, one eyebrow cocked.

  “I didn’t know you when you were five, Janice, so maybe that has something to do with it.” The guy raised his menu and began to read it.

  “If I hadn’t mentioned it since I was five, then I suppose that argument would make sense,” Janice countered. “But I’ve mentioned it hundreds of times.”

  “Hundreds,” Albert repeated with a mocking tone.

  “Yes, hundreds!” Janice began ticking off incidents on her fingers—though what she would do when she got past ten was a mystery. “I told you on our first date. And on our second date. I told you when we went to your mother’s house that Christmas. I told you on my birthday. I told you on our goddamned wedding day!”

  “We had salmon at the reception!” Albert protested.

  “I know! I know! Which proves my point! You had one job. One! You and your mother were supposed to choose the reception menu. And you chose salmon even though you knew I don’t like salmon!”

  Patrick and Sofia did their best to pretend they weren’t listening. Not that Albert or Janice would have noticed them if they’d set up bleachers and started selling popcorn.

  The waitress, a woman in her twenties with blond hair pulled back in a neat chignon, approached and tried to head off an escalation by telling them that Neptune offered many fine non-salmon menu options.

  “That. Is not. The point.” Janice’s eyes were fiery with righteous indignation. “Can you see we’re having a private conversation?”

  Albert was still looking at his menu as though he’d been through this same thing numerous times before—which he certainly had, Patrick reflected, perhaps once for each time his wife had mentioned her hatred of salmon.

  Then, things took a turn.

  “You know who likes salmon?” Albert asked, not looking up from his menu.

  “Who?” Janice demanded.

  “Carol.” He put down his menu with a smack and gave Janice a dead-eyed stare. “Carol likes salmon.”

  Whoever Carol was, the mere mention of her name made Janice go white. “You son of a bitch,” she hissed.

  It seemed to Patrick that this situation needed a hero—someone to step in and be the blessed voice of calm. It might a
s well be him. The pleasant dinners of dozens depended on it.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Janice.

  Janice turned on him. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Just … a man with no particular opinion on salmon. I wondered if I might be of help.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Janice said. “Can you turn back time to before Albert fucked that salmon-loving whore?”

  That was the moment when Sofia lost the composure she’d held onto so flawlessly through the entire episode. It started with a giggle. Then the giggle turned into a guffaw. Finally, the guffaw evolved into helpless laughter.

  “I can’t … I don’t … I’m sorry.” She was gasping for breath, her face flushed prettily, her body shaking with mirth. “Excuse me.” She got up and headed across the restaurant and toward the hallway that led to the restrooms. She seemed to be having some difficulty between the high heels she was wearing and the convulsions of laughter.

  Patrick stood up, Albert and Janice still looking at him. “I’d better …” He pointed vaguely in the direction Sofia had gone. “I should see if she’s … in need of the Heimlich.” He got up and sped past the other diners and into the hallway where Sofia had gone.

  In the hallway, he found Sofia leaning against the wall outside the ladies’ room, her hand clapped over her mouth, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “ ‘Just a man with no particular opinion on salmon!’ Oh, my God. I can’t.” She dissolved into helpless laughter again.

  Laughter was contagious by nature, and before long, Patrick found himself gripped by the kind of desperate, stomach-clenching mirth that has its sufferer gasping for oxygen.

  They both leaned against the wall for support. The hallway was narrow, and he had to squeeze closer to Sofia to allow a waitress to pass through.